A Multinational e-Learning Partnership: Coordinating New Opportunities for Student Learning Across 10 Higher Education Institutions

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

Proposal

Objectives of the Panel
COVID-19 disrupted education systems worldwide, requiring immediate shifts in the delivery of educational programming. While higher education institutional leaders sought innovative solutions, many found their efforts falling short, lacking the internal resources and infrastructure to make such sudden and drastic changes. While some successfully transformed their modes of instruction to online platforms, allowing access to relatively more continuous education (Ojha & Rahman, 2021), others, particularly in low-income countries, encountered the greatest challenges (i.e., inadequate infrastructure, personnel, and instructional and curricular capacities) (Ali, 2020). Learning was lost, especially among students in the global south (Mbambo-Thata, 2021; Reimers, 2022).
With funding from and in partnership with a large foundation, researchers representing one private university in Africa and one public university in the United States (U.S.) co-designed and co-implemented a large e-learning initiative in response. This program currently supports ten institutions of higher e-learning in Africa, the Middle East, and Central America.

Overview of the Panel
Through this panel, researchers who also co-examined the effects of this initiative hope to provide a program overview and present the key findings they collectively derived after studying the impacts of the initiative. More specifically, researchers representing partner leaders in Africa and the U.S. hope to present more information about this e-learning initiative, as well as the evaluation framework used to inform program development and evaluation efforts (that accounts for structural and institutional inequities in education, with emphases on the global south); the participatory evaluation approaches and methods used to evaluate this initiative’s impact (e.g., surveys, interviews, and focus groups), at the individual, institutional, and national levels; all the
while underscoring key findings regarding the initiative’s successes, challenges, and implications with recommendations for future development and reform.
This session, if accepted, will be organized into four papers: (1) Examining Cross-cultural evaluation practices: Leveraging co-evaluation methodologies to merge knowledge systems and research practices, (2) Staff professional development: Opportunities and challenges, (3) Policies and practices on online learning across higher education institutions in Africa, and (4) Evaluation and reflections on e-learning: Perspective on challenges and recommendations for inclusive digital transformation. The researchers describe each of these papers in more detail below.

Scholarly Significance
Papers will be presented from an internal and international perspective to inform the perspectives and practices of others leading or working within other e-learning initiatives globally. The research team explored how the initiative influenced community building, new policies and procedures, and training practices between the implementing partners from the United States and Africa. Researchers also investigated how this initiative, as per study participants’ perspectives, contributed to institutional changes, minimized learning loss, helped build infrastructure, and improved online learning capacities and competencies. Study findings ultimately support researchers’ overall conclusion that this initiative allowed participating institutions to progress toward more high-quality and inclusive online learning environments.

Session Structure
Presenters, the discussant, and the chair will present information about the initiative, present their key findings across papers, all the while involving audience members. Audience members will be invited to participate in active discussions that will include dialogue about the
research conducted and its implications for the participating universities, in other countries, with emphases on other underdeveloped countries.

Sub Unit

• Africa SIG

Chair

• Ann Nielsen, Arizona State University

Individual Presentations

• Examining Cross-cultural evaluation practices: Leveraging co-evaluation methodologies to merge knowledge systems and research practices - Ann Nielsen, Arizona State University

• Increasing Access to Education through Online Professional Development for Academic and Support Staff: Opportunities and Challenges - Kim Welch, Arizona State University; Pauline Mbesa Wambua, Arizona State University

• Policies and Practices on Online Learning across Higher Education Institutions in Africa - Jihae Cha, The George Washington University

• Evaluation and reflections on e-learning: Perspectives on challenges and recommendations for inclusive digital transformation - Hang Bich Duong, Arizona State University